Last year, the UK government banned the prescription of puberty blockers to minors. That was a critical victory grounded in the Cass Review – an independent investigation that exposed the shocking dangers of rushing children into dangerous hormonal interventions when they express confusion over their sex.
Cass made it clear: puberty blockers carry with them significant risks and the long-term effects on brain development, psychological growth, and physical health are largely unknown.
And yet, the NHS is moving forward with this trial, ready to put around 220 children under the age of 16 on these drugs.
Children can’t give informed consent for treatments whose risks continue to unfold decades later. Puberty blockers affect fertility, sexual function, bone density, and future health. And we know from Cass that most children who start puberty blockers go on to cross-sex hormones and possibly surgeries. Puberty blockers are the first step down a medical path with extremely dangerous lifelong consequences.
Calling this a “clinical trial” doesn’t make it safe. A two-year study can’t measure lifelong negative consequences on adult identity, fertility, or overall well-being. Launching this trial is treating children as lab experiments. It’s exposing society’s most vulnerable to the lie of gender ideology and its incredibly harmful effects.
Too many children already have been harmed because ideology has overtaken evidence. This trial perpetuates these same grave harms.
Thankfully, a judicial review, led by detransitioner Keira Bell and therapist James Esses, is fighting to stop this nightmare before it begins. They argue – and rightfully so – that the NHS can’t legally experiment on children when even its own commissioned review found the evidence weak and fraught with risk.
The Cass Review was meant to protect children from rushed, poorly evidenced medical decisions. But the ‘PATHWAYS’ trial threatens to undo that progress. No child should be subjected to puberty blockers, whether inside or outside a clinical trial.
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